UNIVERSITY of ALASKA ANCHORAGE
Master of Social Work Field Education Program
WRITING THE
LEARNING EXPERIENCE NARRATIVE
Purpose: to demonstrate the ability to integrate didactic and in vivo learning experiences; to develop
critical analytical skills by identifying issues, placing them in a professional context, applying
methodology, and assessing outcomes.
Format:
Students are to follow the format described below in writing the Learning Experience
Narrative. Narratives are to be typewritten and utilize APA standards in citing the literature.
Learning Experience Narratives should have a cover sheet that includes the following
identifying information: Learning Experience Narrative # _, Student name, Agency name,
Time frame covered by the entry (e.g. week of Feb19-23, 2007), Entry due date (Due: March
1, 2007), Name of Seminar Instructor and Course title.
E.g.
Learning Experience Narrative
Focus Element
Name: Jane Doe
Agency: Alzheimer’s Resource Agency of Alaska
Time Frame Covered: February 19-23, 2007
Date Due: March 1, 2007
Professor Eva Kopacz
SWKA 644
There are three sections to the Narrative. Section I, the introductory section should contain an
overview of the activities of the week and how those activities relate to your Learning
Contract and learning objectives. Section II consists of required elements that must be
addressed weekly. Section III is concluding topics.
Section I: Introduction
1. OVERVIEW OF ACTIVITIES OF WEEK: Provide a brief summary of the week’s field
activities. Address the relationship of each activity to your Learning Objectives.
Section II: Elements
Identify an experience or issue that arose in your placement this past week and analyze it from one or
all of the following perspectives as required in the syllabus. Discussion of the element selected
should demonstrate the ability to integrate coursework and research on the topic with critical analyses
skills. Sources of information should be cited using APA format. Statements of opinion must be
substantiated by research and other authority.
If you were not in your placement during a given week (e.g. illness) select an issue from a prior week
or discuss alternatives with your seminar instructor. As a general rule, it is expected that you will be
in placement each week across the semester and can select a topic to reflect on from your current
activities.
1. KNOWLEDGE and SKILLS: select some issue arising during the week that illustrates or can be
analyzed using social work, psychological, sociological or other social science theory or research.
Specifically address the knowledge that shapes your activities and/or the activities of the
organization. If it is research, describe it and how the data apply to this situation. If it is theoretical,
cite the theory and explain how it applies here. This element provides you an opportunity to research
indirect or direct practice issues affecting your work. E.g., how much self revelation to clients is
professionally justified?
Where applicable, describe interventions or practice skills pertinent to the topic. This applies to both
indirect and direct practice. Discuss the practice skills you used or would like to have used this week
and observations of skills that others in the setting are utilizing. Specificity in this area is important.
This is a good place to illustrate your personal awareness of professional strengths and areas for
growth. The ideal would be to list a plan to address areas of growth identified.
In discussing knowledge and skills be sure to identify which you are addressing.
2. VALUES: describe an issue or situation illustrating the application of a social work value in your
agency setting. This can refer to specific social work values that are being manifested through the
services your agency offers, or a value conflict that arises for you. Reminder: values are those things
which a profession views as most desirable or preferred. The NASW Code of Ethics, for example,
begins with a description of the core social work values. Ethics are rules governing behavior
including proscripted acts and behavior. For example, stating that individuals should have the right to
determine what happens to them as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else is a value statement. A value
conflict occurs when different values suggest different courses of action - for example, if an
adolescent girl asks us to accompany her for an abortion and your personal belief is that abortion is
morally wrong. This creates a conflict between personal values and the values of the profession.
Your critical reflection of your own emerging sense of social work values and their application in
your practicum can be an excellent point to address in the narrative. If you are part of a multidisciplinary team or working with non social work professionals and/or staff you might want to
analyze the similarities and differences in the values of the professions of the various team members.
Or you might want to examine an issue from the perspective of the conflicting or similar values of
different professionals working at your placement. As with your self-assessment, when various team
members have a value conflict consider and discuss whether it is personal values conflicting or
professional values or a blend. As noted above, be sure to incorporate knowledge informing your
reflection and reference sources.
3. PRACTICE PRINCIPLES, ETHICS AND LAWS: discuss a situation arising in the placement
related to one of the following: practice principles, laws, social work ethics, ethical problems or
ethical dilemmas. Be certain to differentiate between practice principles, professional ethics,
ethical problems, ethical dilemmas, and laws. They often are interrelated, but also differ as do their
mandates and sanctions. Laws and practice principles frequently have an ethical dimension. Laws can
vary from state to state and are continually evolving. In a given situation something may be legal but
not ethical or something may be both illegal and unethical resulting in potentially different
consequences and sanctions. Ethics are rules governing behavior including proscripted acts and
behavior. Ethical problems raise the question: What is the right thing to do. Ethical dilemmas refer to
situations in which the social worker must choose between two or more relevant, but contradictory,
ethical directives, or when every alternative results in an undesirable outcome for one or more
persons. If selecting an ethical code or concern for your focus please refer to the specific section of
the Code of Ethics by citing the applicable paragraph and section. If an ethical dilemma occurs,
analyze it and provide a framework and rationale for your proposed or actual resolution. If you are a
member of an interdisciplinary team, you may wish to compare the Codes of Ethics of the various
team members or discuss divergent views on how to address a given situation in relation to the
various codes of ethics. If you are discussing a practice principle or law, please reference it with
appropriate citation.
4. BOUNDARIES: describe situations and circumstances where your personal and professional lives
are being interwoven or there is a potential to do so. Boundary issues refer to professional boundaries
which should be segmented from other parts of your life - business, sex, family, religion, politics,
friendships, etc. When discussing boundaries, indicate the nature of the actual or potential conflict
and your plans to deal with it. Boundary issues can arise with clients, supervisors, other staff, peers,
and faculty. Again, the expectation is that you will cite the knowledge base informing your thinking.
There is a great deal of literature on boundaries. For example, professionals from a humanistic
perspective take a very different approach than professionals from a psychoanalytic perspective. What
is appropriate in an isolated rural community or bush village versus a metropolis such as Manhattan
may differ. A persons culture, the age of the client (e.g. child vs. adult), the nature of the issues and
intervention all can influence perspective and parameters.
5. SOCIAL POLICY: describe how social policy affects specific things you are doing in the
placement or the way your organization does business. This refers to social policy - not the rules or
policies of an organization. Organizational rules or policies should be covered in the organizational
issues section. Examples of social policy include - reporting child and elder abuse,
deinstitutionalization, the mandate of providing education in the least restrictive environment
(“mainstreaming” vs. special classes), welfare to work, Native Hiring Preferences, and Affirmative
Action. Key talking points may include the official name of the policy, when the policy was enacted,
social problem addressed (e.g. child abuse), funding source, goal and key principles of the policy,
how the policy relates to the population you serve or your organization’s mission and programs, your
reaction to the policy as practiced in your organization. You may want to address the policy from the
perspective of work with an individual client and the impact of that policy on one client you are
working with or you may choose to address it in relation to an entire group of individuals e.g. the
Medicaid CHOICE waiver or involuntary commitment laws.
6. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE, POLICIES, REGULATIONS, PRACTICES: Describe an
organizational issue(s) significant to your work. What are “real world” issues impacting on what you
are (or in some cases are not) doing. Reality may be budgetary constraints on the agency, its policies
and practices, its personnel rules, its mission, its restrictions on people it serves, staff issues, planning
and governance, leadership, program design and development, structure and roles, power structures,
human resource management, information systems, financial management etc. Each of these topics
contains multiple possibilities for discussion. For example, staff issues could include personal issues
by staff which are brought into the workplace, staff which have impossible assignments such as a
Parole Officer with 500 cases, staff having different opinions about how a client or situation should
be handled, staff value and ethical conflicts e.g. in a hospital setting the staff might have strong
feelings about a patient’s decision to discontinue renal dialysis. Another staff issue that could be
described is how different professional disciplines react to the same situation.
Section III: Concluding Topics
Additional topics to be included in each Narrative.
1. SUPERVISION ISSUES. Describe and discuss topics addressed in supervision with your Field
Instructor this week.
2. SIGNATURE AND DATE. Sign and date your Narrative.